By Jean DerGurahian November 02, 2009 This is the second part of a two-part series on the effects of patient-safety advocates. Part one of the series, which ran Sept. 7 (p. 6), described how three women went from parent to patient-safety advocate as a result of medical errors. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian September 07, 2009 This is the first part of a two-part series on the impact of patient-safety advocates. Part two of the series, which will appear in an upcoming issue, will look at how the advocates' work affected the specific providers involved. ... FULL STORY
By Shawn Rhea June 22, 2009 In 2007, Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger Heath System partnered with one of its payers, sister company Geisinger Health Plan, to launch a quality improvement initiative called Personal Health Navigator. The program, which assigns patients medical homes with the sickest 20% also receiving nurse case managers to coordinate their care, was employed to test whether a different model of care could improve the health system’s productivity. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian May 25, 2009 With speed and accuracy the name of the game for laboratory results, Great Basin Scientific hopes its new diagnostic tool will help providers find infections quickly and efficiently so that care delivery can be improved. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian and Shawn Rhea April 27, 2009 In his March address during the White House Forum on Health Reform, President Barack Obama called the ever-growing cost of healthcare “one of the greatest threats” to America’s well-being and economic success. The goal of the forum, he added, was to “determine how we lower costs for everyone, improve quality for everyone and expand coverage to all Americans.” ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn October 30, 2009 HHS has issued an interim final rule that stiffen penalties for privacy and security violations under the Health Insurance Portability Act of 1996. ... FULL STORY
By Joe Carlson / HITS staff writer October 28, 2009 Contrary to assertions from its critics, the American Hospital Association says that the law requiring hospitals to notify patients of breaches of their confidential health information does allow hospitals to gauge the level of potential harm to patients before deciding whether to send out notices. ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer October 28, 2009 The head of federal efforts to boost the use of health information technology told members of an IT advisory panel Tuesday that they need to step back and take a second look at the proposed national health information network, and also come up with some advice on a national policy framework for IT privacy and security that makes sense.David Blumenthal, head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at HHS, thanked members of the HIT Policy Committee for their achievements thus far. ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer October 21, 2009 Commercial labs want out from under certain data exchange restrictions imposed by federal and state privacy and medical and laboratory licensing laws, which they see as unfairly singling them out and impeding their large-scale data sharing arrangements with other healthcare organizations. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian/ HITS staff writer October 12, 2009 Kaiser Permanente will use its electronic health records and more than $54 million in grants over two years from the National Institutes of Health to conduct medical research in various fields. ... FULL STORY
By Gregg Blesch October 02, 2009 HHS' inspector general's office posted its work plan for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1, outlining in a 128-page document the areas of new and ongoing interest to the agency tasked with rooting out fraud, waste and abuse from the department's programs. ... FULL STORY
By Melanie Evans September 30, 2009 President Barack Obama touted scientific potential and jobs expected to stem from more than $5 billion in federal economic stimulus funds awarded by the National Institutes of Health. ... FULL STORY
By Joseph Conn September 29, 2009 Federally supported community health centers and other healthcare organizations will receive 27 federal stimulus grants totaling $27.8 million through HHS' Health Resources and Services Administration. The grants will be used to implement electronic health-record systems, develop health information exchange organizations, or HIE organizations, and help organizations better use existing EHRs to improve their quality of patient care, HHS announced. ... FULL STORY
By Rebecca Vesely / HITS staff writer September 24, 2009 A new Web site aims to help community health centers and other safety-net clinics plan upgrades to their facilities. The Web site launches just as federal stimulus dollars have become available to renovate or build new clinic facilities nationwide. ... FULL STORY
By Rebecca Vesely September 18, 2009 The HHS has announced a $650 million prevention and wellness initiative, with funding from the federal stimulus law. ... FULL STORY
By Joe Carlson September 16, 2009 Officials with American Hospital Association urged the Health Information Technology Standards Committee to reconsider its proposed definition of “meaningful use” in the context of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. ... FULL STORY
By Rebecca Vesely September 12, 2009 The Indian Health Service awarded a $90.5 million construction contract for a replacement facility at 21-bed Norton Sound Regional Hospital, Nome, Alaska, using federal stimulus dollars. The contract went to Inuit-NCI JV, which is a partnership between Inuit Services and Neeser Construction of Anchorage. ... FULL STORY
By Jennifer Lubell September 11, 2009 Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) has asked the Government Accountability Office to examine the use of $10 billion in stimulus funds received by the National Institutes of Health. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian September 04, 2009 The National Community Pharmacists Association is asking HHS to consider its suggested changes to requirements under the health information technology provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. ... FULL STORY
By Melanie Evans September 03, 2009 Parkland Health & Hospital System, a tax district-owned hospital based in Dallas, went to markets with $680 million in Build America Bonds to help fund construction of an 862-bed replacement hospital and medical campus. ... FULL STORY
By Rebecca Vesely December 15, 2008 At Kaiser Permanente’s Sidney R. Garfield Health Care Innovation Center, tucked away in a nondescript office park in San Leandro, Calif., Lonny Brooks was talking about the future on a recent sunny morning. ... FULL STORY
By Rebecca Vesely November 17, 2008 Major health insurers are ramping up an array of wellness programs to meet growing demand from large employers and to help members lower their medical costs, with some of the biggest health plans rolling out new programs in recent months. ... FULL STORY
By Rebecca Vesely October 27, 2008 A midsize paper-supply company offers three extra vacation days to employees at whichever of its branches collectively loses the most weight in seven weeks. Workers at one branch in Scranton, Pa., take extreme measures to win the contest. One eats only grilled chicken breast and diet soda, another swallows what she thinks is a tapeworm, and a third replaces the vending machine junk food with fruits and vegetables, which quickly rot, attracting flies. Some workers rebel by sneaking a cheesecake into the supply room... ... FULL STORY
By Cinda Becker December 17, 2007 Wiping out infections from hospitals may not be the financial slam-dunk it’s cracked up to be, which might explain a lot of the inertia surrounding infection control. ... FULL STORY
By Jean DerGurahian December 10, 2007 A growing number of hospitals across the country are making promises to stop billing patients and payers for care related to certain medical errors, but the efforts appear to be more of a public relations move than a substantive change. ... FULL STORY
By Cinda Becker December 03, 2007 Despite its relatively small size and challenged balance sheet, Rush North Shore Medical Center has enthusiastically boarded the quality improvement train with some impressive results. ... FULL STORY
By Jessica Zigmond March 19, 2007 Providing healthcare services to the nation's more than 2 million inmates is a formidable task, given this patient population's high level of chronic and communicable disease, the lack of a universal model to provide care, and increasing costs in healthcare. Given these challenges, more state and local governments are turning to outside service companies to deliver healthcare at their facilities, but yet another daunting assignment is agreeing on a workable contract for services. ... FULL STORY
By Jessica Zigmond March 19, 2007 A recent public-safety project of the Pew Charitable Trusts estimates that between 2007 and 2011 the number of state and federal prisoners will grow by about 192,000 inmates—a nearly 13% increase that would be almost triple the projected growth rate of the general U.S. population. ... FULL STORY
By Mark Taylor February 19, 2007 The multibillion-dollar business of caring for the nation’s 2.2 million prisoners and inmates continues to snare headlines, sap government resources and pose enormous financial and delivery challenges for the federal, state and local government agencies charged with providing those services and the taxpayers who fund them. ... FULL STORY
January 19, 2009 According to one bearish analyst, 2009 just might be the beginning of the end of profits for investor-owned hospital chains. The sinking economy is a big factor, but longer term, the analyst sees two big negatives that others see as positives—universal coverage and the aging population. ... FULL STORY
January 19, 2009 In an effort to cut spending while maintaining quality, look for hospitals and lawmakers to make a greater push to break manufacturers’ influence on physicians’ selection of expensive—but not necessarily clinically superior—drugs and medical devices. ... FULL STORY
January 19, 2009 Last year's credit crisis has left borrowers with fewer—and more expensive—options to finance construction, technology and other big-ticket items. Limited access to affordable credit is expected to fuel merger-and-acquisition activity as weaker hospitals seek larger, more stable partners. Meanwhile, hospitals and health systems also enter the year with significantly less cash thanks to investment losses, a situation that has weakened balance sheet. ... FULL STORY
January 19, 2009 The economic recession is likely to be a two-sided coin for major insurers. On one side, they could see their medical costs drop as patients delay or forgo care because they have either lost their insurance or they can no longer afford the out-of-pocket costs. This is good news for insurers’ bottom lines. ... FULL STORY
January 19, 2009 Although President Obama isn’t likely to get everything he called for in his proposals during the campaign, look for the U.S. to inch closer to a form of universal coverage. And first out of the gates is another economic stimulus package that will include healthcare provisions. ... FULL STORY
January 19, 2009 Look for 2009 to mark the return of real privacy consideration and enforcement in healthcare IT after two terms of lip service and reversals by the Bush administration. Meanwhile, it’s almost a forgone conclusion that Uncle Sam will throw billions of dollars at health IT. The only question is how large the final tally will be. ... FULL STORY
January 19, 2009 Organized labor activity increased in 2008, a trend expected to accelerate this year. The single biggest factor that will drive continued growth is the ascendancy of union-friendly Democrats in the federal government, including Barack Obama, who has said he favors passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. ... FULL STORY
January 19, 2009 The fears of physician owners in 2008 are expected to become a reality this year as Congress will more than likely re-introduce legislation to restrict physician ownership and discourage future growth in this segment. ... FULL STORY
January 19, 2009 How will the new Obama administration affect healthcare the healthcare regulatory environment? An early test comes in March when a moratorium will expire on a series of Medicaid regulations that hospitals say would trim billions of dollars from the program and potentially jeopardize care. ... FULL STORY
January 19, 2009 Last year, the quality field introduced a wide range of clinical-improvement initiatives to help reduce medical errors. Expect those efforts to become much more targeted and specific to medical outcomes as quality proponents focus on improving episodes of care. Also look for the development of quality standards that measure how well providers treat patients from the time they enter an emergency room until they meet with their primary-care doctors for follow-up visits. ... FULL STORY
By Gregg Blesch May 25, 2009 An alliance of nurses unions rallied in Washington this month for new workplace regulations in hospitals—an agenda the unions and other nurse advocacy groups have had mixed results in pushing piecemeal state by state. ... FULL STORY
By Jessica Zigmond June 02, 2008 Obesity, asthma, food allergies, behavioral disorders, vision deficiencies and prescription-medication abuse are just some of the chronic health problems that children face today, making the need for school nurses in America stronger than ever. ... FULL STORY
By Jessica Zigmond June 02, 2008 If hospital administrators think they face a nursing shortage now, they have more than another thing coming. ... FULL STORY
By Melanie Evans June 04, 2007 Improving healthcare quality for minorities won’t happen without quality diversity efforts among hospitals, according to the newly created American Leadership Council on Diversity in Healthcare. The 20-member council, an initiative of the American Hospital Association affiliate the Institute for Diversity in Health Management, Chicago, recently launched an effort to create a certificate program for diversity professionals. ... FULL STORY
By Melanie Evans June 04, 2007 Experts consider increasing diversity among doctors, nurses and other professionals as essential to reducing costly, debilitating health disparities among U.S. minorities. Now, the CMS may give hospitals added incentive to bolster their efforts. ... FULL STORY
By Melanie Evans June 04, 2007 Reports in recent years have highlighted the yawning gap between patients’ and caregivers’ demographics. In 2004, the Institute of Medicine and the Sullivan Commission on Diversity in the Healthcare Workforce separately released studies that urged sweeping changes to boost minorities’ access to medical and health education and called for greater emphasis, clearer standards and heightened oversight of diversity and cultural competency goals. ... FULL STORY
